MiamiBigAL

I've only played 5 games of FE as follows: 1. Normal 2. Challenging 3. Challenging 4. Hard 5. Expert I found Expert really easy with Master Scouts but have not had any time to play the game for quite a few weeks now. Will probably go for Insane next.

Kalin, I largely agree with your post. The initiative balance is broken at the moment. It can be at least partially fixed by reducing initiative penalties and/or increasing map size (which will NOT dramatically increase combat time as a large map will at best increase the combat turns by maybe 1, max 2). Armor piercing for bows makes a lot of sense, as does giving some sort of buff to staves (which at the moment suck ass compared to casting spells).

This is actually the one bug that has stopped me from playing this game in many weeks. It is way too frustrating trying to look for things that have been destroyed (which happened to me a lot using Master Scout outpost/city spamming).

I really think a larger tactical map is the best solution. Maybe archers should also have their own "overpower" trait so they become useful endgame when fast, heavy armored multi-unit melee groups start charging down with multiple moves to.

And just as importantly, WHERE it's been destroyed! This is the most time consuming micromanagement problem in the game and it also drives me crazy.

joasoze, I've cleared out all enemies and all goodiehuts in ALL wildlands. They did not clear. It only happened in one game and not in the others where they did clear. It is definitely a bug. I'm pretty sure getting the goodie huts isn't necessary anyway.

I get that to CMarvel. In my most recent game I cleared out all the Wildlands and their ZoC never disappeared. Was highly frustrating!

Gorde, I really like your suggestion a lot! It rewards the achievement of researching the higher-level tech while maintaining the viability of 3-unit armies. Unlockable late-game traits would definitely be able to be balanced, and also provide for much deeper strategy. In effect, you are creating new units without creating new models. That is the genius of the FE trait system. You can create such a variety of tactics without creating new models. This is probabl

Good job! But how much did you spend on those rushed units? I shudder to think :/

Well, if we're making predictions, I'm going to have to say Friday, 6th July, since they did say it COULD be early July, and when a developer says it could be later, it almost always is. Friday means we get the game for the weekend!

That's actually very useful to know Circuitbreaker. Now I don't have to tremor 3 times in a row before sending in a relief army (a pioneer who just watches the monsters fall over from having 0 hp upon entering battle)

Everything is of course relative to how powerful you are. If you are level 40 you are not going to fear a cave bear. The point is that they are rated weak, and as such are often taken on early game by level 3-5 sovereigns who could be mauled to death in one attack. If Cave Bears are weak, then they are probably the most threatening "weak" creatures in the game. Bump them to medium with an accompanying XP boost and that would balance the unit a lot more.

Ah yes, I did miss Enchanters, the most gratifying sadistic ability you can have.

There is no such thing as "naturally" enhanced instability in strategies. We're talking about a computer generated world. Everything is artificial. You either have watered-down counters, or you have strong counters. It is all rock-paper-scissors when it comes down to it; it's just a question of how absolute a counter you want. The stronger the counters, the more you have to think about what unit/trait/spell you want to build/attach/research.

I fully agree Kongdej. I think evolutionary adaptive strategy is always preferable to predefined "master plan" strategies. But I guess I come from a high level RTS background and the majority might prefer otherwise. That said, Civ IV, for example, was always about adapting to your environment, which made it one of the most phenomenal 4x of all time.

I didn't say all his abilities are OP. I said he has ALL the OP abilities. There is a logical difference. And "no armor" isn't a constraining weakness when combined with his other traits, because he could win in less than 40 turns on Hard. I'm not sure I would have even researched leather armor by then.

Yes, tech points accrue at 10% of each tech researched. These points sit in a "pot" and do not work in any way for you. When you trade tech points you do not actually lose any tech--they are only useful for trading away for other tech points (that DO go towards your tech tree)

Ahh throwing down the gauntlet. I like it :-) So we're allowed any custom faction/sovereign I take it. What other settings? Everything average? Tree of Life?

Those take a lot of mana. Unless you have a huge reserve, which at faction power 137 I doubt he has, the mana won't last very long. Well I guess if he managed to use paragon to get level 67, maybe he does :/

I would recommend not using the Custom Faction as the system is pretty broken at the moment, at least for competitive play. As it is just for "fun" though, then go all out :-) The particular custom faction you are using definitely would not be possible once they fix the faction points. You have all the OP abilities in it.

Each to his own I guess. I personally like rock, paper, scissors as I think it adds more strategy and punishes crap strategy but it's personal preference. Sample suggestions for variety (using Hoarder Spider as example): Giant Hoarder Spider (+50% hp) Fast Hoarder Spider (+5 initiative) Venomous Hoarder Spider (extra poison damage/turn) You can be very creative on this front and don't need new m

Seanw and Kalin both make good points but I think they are two sides of the same coin. It is all about balance in the end. That said, I tend to agree with Seanw at this stage in the development. The truth is that at the moment the opportunity cost of going for larger army sizes, especially above armies of 5 is astronomical. On that basis, you need a situation where these larger groups are immediately competitive out the door, otherwise those

Those damn bears! Yeah good point about the counters to. They are there but are so weak as to be called counters. From the top of my head: Curse or Elemental Attack/Spells vs High Armor Doge or Blind vs Maul or low accuracy hard hitters Single Unit vs Overpower Spear vs Counterattack or High Armor Haste/Slow vs high initiative Elemental Attack vs Low Elemental resistances Anything vs Ranged (definitely ne

After playing the game I began wondering why its re-playability did not feel as high than in some other 4x games I've played. The first thing that came to mind was the variety of strategies that you needed to employ against enemy armies, particularly monster armies. The monster armies are all generic, both in type and in size. The Shaman armies, for example, would always have the same distribution of monster type and number, which made for generic battles.</p

Fair point, except if all you have is a god-hero, goodluck trying to defend ALL your cities, outposts, shrines, other resources, against multiple CPU armies. However, I do agree a level 67 hero should be taken a hell of a lot more seriously.